Privacy is a part of security. There's more to security than just privacy.
To give an example, telling a friend where you'll be if you go on a date is sacrificing some privacy for security.
this post was submitted on 20 Jun 2025
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They can be exclusive too. If you run a public server in your DMZ, but keep your personal information behind your firewall, the public server is not secure but you are still practicing good privacy.
Never heard of those two being opposed.
The trade-off of security is widely known to be convenience, not privacy.
Consider all the governments currently trying to pass dangerous, invasive, anti-privacy, anti-encryption laws in the name of “safety”. I think that’s what the OP is talking about.
It’s not applicable to individuals. Think of society as the whole. I want access to encryption to protect my tax files. Pedos want encryption to pass illicit pix. As a society, should we pass laws that support encryption (privacy), or laws that restrict encryption (security).
punishing everyone for the crimes of a few is intolerable in many free societies
So is getting molested.
And there’s the tension, perfectly captured by the last two replies. And it is extensible to anarchy vs authoritarianism. Because we are a species unable of setting individual wants below societal needs without a prevailing existential threat (starvation, disease, war, etc.)
There's overlap but they are different concepts.
Security is about protecting all assets, tangible or not. Privacy is really about protecting personal and/or identifiable information.
Security is a part of privacy.
For example, you may block cookies in your browser. That is a privacy measure, but not really a security measure.
You say that right up until a tracking cookie links some accounts together that otherwise weren't and some nut job buys your data from a data broker and comes to your house to kill you.
All privacy is security, but not all security is privacy.
Both security and privacy are forms of control. This can be confusing, but there is a difference. I think of it like this:
Security is your control over who can access your data. If someone is accessing your data after you've tried to prevent them from doing so, that's a security breach. You'll need to improve something on your end to fix it.
Privacy is your control over what people and companies can do with your data once you've granted them access to it. This one can be harder to fix when something goes wrong, and it can mean anything from adjusting some settings that you didn't know existed to changing who you vote for in government elections.
I love my privacy. And I would never give up encryption.
But I'm not naive not lying, I know that privacy can also be used by criminals to do crime while avoiding prosecution by law enforcement. Not every crime is morally wrong, but many are.
It would be dishonest for my part saying that without privacy it wouldn't be easier for law enforcement to detain certain criminals. But that doesn't erase that without privacy law enforcement could also take morally right criminals. A d without privacy other bad actors also have an easier time getting you.
My best take is that is a complex matter, but without downplaying the fact that not all privacy is used by good people, overall having privacy is a good thing.
And being realistic 100% privacy would never be achieved and that level of privacy maybe it's not desirable. In the sense that with 100% privacy anything you do could be trazable to you without your consent no matter what, which mean that you could do really nasty things without repercussions. But with a great level of privacy it's more plausible that the greater resources that law enforcement would need to disclose your actions would more likely be used in nasty crimes more than in other things. But, then again. It's a complex issue, it has a lot of grays and I don't think it can be oversimplified in a dogma.
Not exactly, but security as in "let us pass a law that makes end-to-end encryption in messengers illegal" can go and fuck right off
Sorry, but we can only get so much security by giving up your privacy, now we need the kind of security that can only be bought by giving up your security as well.
It's only weird until you realize they aren't talking about your "personal" security. They couldn't care less about you.